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Question: Does suffering point to the area of the necessary correction directly or only indirectly?

Answer: We need to try to accurately discern what is causing the pain, meaning what the Creator expects from us. When a thought, desire, or intention visits us and it’s not connected to love of others, I should immediately feel the red light turn on in me!

There are thoughts, desires, and intentions where this alert signal is, at first, yellow, then orange, and finally, red as a real sign of disaster. It depends on the case.

But I should view it so as to desire looking at everything with love, and if it’s less than that, I want a red light to turn on. Then, I will see a field of red lights in front of me. This makes me understand and become aware of my real condition so that I can get a hold of myself and want to switch all these lights to green. I search for how it’s done, and thereby, I start working with the Creator.

He turns on the red light within me, and I switch it to green. While I am attempting to do so, I search for why it turned red and how to switch it. This is what our work is all about, the process we are supposed to undergo.[42601]
From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/11, Shamati #113

A true prayer is “the prayer of eighteen blessings.” They are nine Sefirot of the Direct Light and nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light not in Malchut, the desire to receive pleasure, but in Yesod, which is above the egoistic desire. In other words, it implies the intention to employ Malchut to bestow. From here derive 18 types of our relationships with the Creator: nine from the Direct Light and nine from the Reflected one.

To use Yesod in the place of Malchut means to act on the side of “mercy” since we are seeking the property of bestowal, striving to become equivalent to the “first nine Sefirot” (Tet Rishonot), which descend from the Creator to the created being, Malchut, the 10thSefira. And our sole desire is to reveal these nine Sefirot, the properties of the Creator, meaning to take them in, absorb, and become similar to them in our nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light.

Thereby, a true prayer forms within us. After all, because of my desire to get equivalent to the first nine Sefirot, I engage my nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light and ask to utilize them in order for Malchut to become totally identical to the nine properties of the Creator who enters it. Thus, my nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light become the vessel (Kli) accepting the nine Sefirot of the Direct Light, and I receive the Light into my prayer right then and there.

If we know how to pray like this, then we engage the upper Light in the right way by seeking how to receive mercy and the force of bestowal from it, and afterwards, by dressing in our Reflected Light from below upwards. Thus, the prayer will be an act that contains absolutely everything within itself, revealing the first nine Sefirot in Malchut, perceiving them as the nine upper properties in it, and the ascension of the Reflected Light from Malchut downward upwards, which becomes “garments” for the Direct Light as it gets calculated and received in the Reflected Light. All of this is accomplished through the prayer of “eighteen blessings.” Hence, “the prayer of 18 Sefirot” is the key prayer in spiritual work.

If “ascension of the worlds” occurs during the spiritual work, such states as the “Sabbath” (Saturday), a special “holiday,” it results in the “prayer of 18 Sefirot” being altered because a more powerful Light descends from Above which makes the work below it, in the nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light, change in order to contain the entire Light coming to us during the holidays. This is the way we arrange our spiritual work.

This is why it is written that “Anything is done by the power of prayer” and “Contemplate Him day and night,” since prayer is an act that contains all stages of making the spiritual Partzuf: entering of the upper Light, followed by the calculation in the Partzuf’s head, its interaction-by-striking with the Light (Zivugde Hakaa BeRosh), and the expansion of the Light downward. All of which implies the entire process undergone by the Partzuf in its development: conception, nurturing, maturity (Ibur, Yenika, Mochin). All of this is contained in the prayer of the 18: the nine Sefirot of the Direct Light, which dress in the nine Sefirot of the Reflected Light.

And this all occurs while I keep the intention to be transformed rather than trying to alter the upper Light, which is at absolute rest and always radiates at its fullest in the infinite measure in the head (Rosh) of each spiritual degree. A person who is only beginning his or her spiritual work must take time to examine their attitude to the upper force as unalterable, which fills the entire creation, meaning it isn’t subject to change.

After all, the upper one is totally open to us and radiates all its Light, while the changes occur solely in the one that receives. Therefore, my prayer is not a plea for the upper one to change, but rather a search for the right desires in me that will help me to connect with the upper force and gradually nurture myself in becoming identical to Him.
[42594]From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/9/11, Shamati #113

Question: I recently read an article that talks about how things that became successful throughout the world did not catch on in Israel, such as fantasy films and complicated media gadgets. Why is that?

Answer: We, the people of Israel, are “primitive animals,” the most backward nation if we do not live in a framework that’s appropriate for us. This is evident from the culture, the upbringing, and everything else happening here. We can’t do anything right, and we’re also proud of that.

We don’t understand that we don’t and won’t have any achievements until we place ourselves beneath the upper force. Compared to the achievements of the Jews abroad, we have practically nothing to be proud of here. Of course, we do manage to do some things well, but considering our potential, it’s a miserable fraction of what we can do.

We have always compared ourselves to other nations, but that is incorrect because our entire potential comes from Bina, not Malchut. So why do we always retreat? In essence, our “achievements” are failures compared to what we are able to do.

Nothing will help us. If we don’t connect to our Source, then we simply won’t survive.

This is why we celebrate Independence Day, when we are happy about the opportunity to do spiritual work and to ascend spiritually. This day is not about “being chased into the pound,” which is what happened to our bodies. We can’t look at life that way.

Independence Day for us is a reminder of the chance that has been given to us. By realizing this opportunity correctly, we will be able to bring the whole world to a spiritual ascent, to eternity and perfection. The issue here is not the state of Israel or the nation of Israel, but the spiritual essence of what is happening. We have been brought to the place of spiritual realization, the place where the spiritual redemption of the whole world begins.[42699]From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/11, ‘Inheritance of the Land”

Even in the material world we don’t have any opportunity to become a nation living in our own country, on our own land unless we first correct ourselves spiritually. Only the forces descending from above build the material conditions for us here.

In general, we must try to understand to the best of our ability what the material world is. It is not a goal, but the smallest, most external means to start ascending. In this extremely flawed material reality that is lying on the lowest level, we must start carrying out the work of unification in order to enter the spiritual world.

After that we will turn to all the other nations and show them this work so they would also unite with each other. As a result, all of us, the whole world will become one single whole, one family, and will then ascend to its spiritual level. That is the only way we will realize our predestination, the purpose for which we exist.

We have to give everything its proper importance: our world compared to the spiritual world, the material nation of Israel compared to its spiritual analogue, the material state of Israel compared to the spiritual land of Israel. Every thing has to have its own place according to the final goal. Precisely this determines an object’s importance and the means to use it.[42701]From the 4th part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/10/11, “Inheritance of the Land”

We are separated from the Creator only by a tiny black point within the infinite Light, which is regarded as “existence from absence” (Yesh Mi Ain). This is, in fact, the very basis of the entire creation, the new reality “from absence.” The rest of it is “from existence,” from the Creator.

This point is created by the Creator, while all “existence” (Yesh), which is added to this point, must come from us, our own effort. Hence, in the end, we attain similarity to the Creator, adhesion, the level equal to His.

First of all, this point of creation evolves in four stages of the expansion of the Direct Light, whereby these four degrees of bestowal instill into the point “from absence” all the basics. On the part of the Light, no more actions are necessary; it’s enough. The rest emerges as the reaction of this point that received an impression from the Light, absorbed its properties, and is able to act on its own thereby.

Thus, from the world of Infinity, from the state where it merged with the Light, it begins to withdraw into our world through the ten “Sefirot of concealment” (Sefirot Blima) that absorb (Bolim) the Light inward, inside the creature. Due to this, the creature grows from the point opposite to the Creator, reaching the utmost possible distance from Him, which is regarded as “this world.”

This withdrawal (both qualitative and quantitative) encompasses all properties and locations. As a result, the created being has no quality that would match the Creator’s to the smallest degree. We think that this means a downfall, a descent, withdrawal, darkness, but it is quite the opposite. It is the unfolding of our nature, the very black point created by the Creator!

This development is necessary to reveal how much this point from “absence” is opposite to existence, to that which “exists.” It is what we attain from this entire descent, albeit not all at once, but with time, descending deeper and deeper, after we reach “this world” and experience the development of our egoism, meaning realize our being opposite to the Creator. Thereby, we pass through the still, vegetative, and animate levels of nature, until we reach the lowest one, “human.”

A human becomes aware of being far from and opposite to the Creator and concludes that it is evil. From the awareness of evil, he continues to study himself and the Creator even more, as the “advantage of Light coming from darkness,” and understands that it is necessary to become corrected. Thereby, he reaches true opposition to the Creator.

When he begins his correction, on one hand, he starts ascending back to the world of Infinity by equalizing himself with the Creator. On the other, even while doing so, he attains how opposite he is to the Creator ever more.

Only in the very end of correction (Gmar Tikkun), when he returns to the initial point, Malchut of Infinity, he gains complete understanding, awareness, and experience of what existence (Yesh), the property of the Creator, means.[42526]From the 1st part of the Daily Kabbalah Lesson 5/8/2011, “All Who Suffer for the Public”